IN MEXICO, SECURITY IS IN THE PLANNING

NOGALES, Mexico - RESEARCH on a book brought me to this border city
about 60 miles south
of Tucson the other day, and by my rough count, there were about a
dozen of us Americans on the sunny downtown streets. A few years ago,
there would have been thousands.

History shows that it takes a lot to sink the indomitable Mexican
spirit, but a year's worth of drug-war mayhem (and the resulting
publicity) in the towns on the border with the United States has
certainly has done a good job of it. The downtown restaurants that
weren't already boarded up were mostly empty. Shopkeepers seemed dazed.

At one store selling hammered tin mirrors, the owner pointed to a
mirror on display. "This mirror was made by my great-grandfather, who
lost both arms fighting with Pancho Villa and had to work holding the
hammer in his foot," he said. "Such beauty!" His woeful grin indicated
he knew that friendly banter, rather than money, would be the only
thing exchanged here.

Travel to Mexico, both leisure and business, has been severely
affected by the violence, especially in cities like Tijuana, Nogales,
Ciudad Juarez, Monterrey and Matamoros that are strung near the
Mexican border.

The standard advice is that anyone traveling to the Mexican border
towns do so prudently. While most of the killings involve warring
gangs, bystanders have been caught in the crossfire.

And the violence continues to escalate. Hours after I left Nogales
last Thursday, gunmen firing automatic weapons from a pickup truck
killed the city's deputy police chief and his bodyguard on a main
street. On Friday, a federal police officer was killed outside a hotel
in Juarez. On Sunday, the bodies of five people who had been shot to
death were found beside a highway, and another body was found on a
soccer field near Juarez, across the border from El Paso. And those
are just the grim highlights from one week.

In general, how should business travelers to the region
prepare?

"I would say to any business traveler coming into the northern towns
of Mexico, try to avoid staying overnight," said John Kewell, the vice
president for security consulting for Mexico, Central America and the
Caribbean at Control Risks, a risk management company. "We would
encourage you to travel by day if possible, which gives you that added
element of security."

From his office in Mexico City, Mr. Kewell, a former British Army
officer, also suggested making careful advance plans to ensure "close
coordination" with clients or partners in the area.

"You need to have your itinerary fixed very much in advance, have your
local points of contact aware of your itinerary, and make sure you use
your local contacts to smooth your travel. To think you can arrive
here in the same way you would in a city in Ohio or someplace is
madness," he said.

While some fears can be overblown, he said, it is still worth taking
precautions to avoid known danger areas. Clients with worries about
travel to Mexico are often told that the most significant risk they
face is common street crime rather than drug-related violence, but Mr.
Kewell said "there is a very strong argument that normal street crime
increases with drug-related violence and the associated lack of security."

That was also the assessment of Samuel Logan, the regional manager for
Latin America at iJet Intelligent Risk Systems. Once they are briefed
on the overall security environment, clients often ask about the risks
associated with daily transportation. They are worried, for example,
about using taxicabs, given incidents in which travelers have been
briefly kidnapped and forced to withdraw money from bank A.T.M.'s and,
sometimes being held past midnight "so they can withdraw two days'
worth of A.T.M. limits," he said.

IJet will coordinate transportation for clients, depending on risk
assessment. Often, Mr. Logan said, the answer is using a radio-taxi
service recommended by a reputable hotel.

There have been reports of travelers resorting to armored cars in
Mexico. But Mr. Kewell at Control Risks doesn't think much of security
overkill.

"Keep a low profile, be well-informed in advance -- that would be our
approach," he said, adding: "No one should pretend that you can put a
business traveler in an armored car with a few gunmen in it and expect
full protection. If the situation is that bad, you shouldn't be there
in the first place."